


I'm Just Drunk Enough to Be Sure that I'm Ready to Die

by starryeyeddreamers



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Blood, Cutting, Depression, Gen, M/M, Self-Harm, Suicide Attempt, maybe they'll be a followup, sort of not, sort of unrequited love
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-06
Updated: 2013-07-20
Packaged: 2017-12-17 20:11:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,564
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/871499
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/starryeyeddreamers/pseuds/starryeyeddreamers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A severely depressed Grantaire doesn't know his worth. It's basically his thoughts, and how his sick mind twists everything about himself</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This gets pretty graphic and can really be a trigger for depression/cutting so be careful. Title comes from Johnny Hobo's The Politics of "Holy Shit I Just Cut My Hand on a Bottle"

The blood is dripping on the pages in his lap. He laughs quietly. He had started with shallow horizontal cuts. He’s barely paying attention,not to the razor in his hand or the book resting on his legs. His head is full of images of blond curls, empty whiskey bottles and the perpetually empty canvases in the next room.

He has paint on his hands and his jeans but nothing to show for it. He’s mixed ten different shades of blue on his palette, none of them capturing the light of the cafe and the passion in his eyes when he speaks. Another whole palette is covered in reds for all the sanguine tones that are a constant theme in his life now. His favorite color before last year had been dark green, a calming color, a favorite of his beloved book bindings and the attic of his grandmother’s house. But now red rules his life; it is the color of lips, wool coats of a certain Greek god, and most importantly, the color of blood.

He supplements his bar-tending and barista tips with the selling of a painting at least once a month. But now he can’t remember the last time he got farther than mixing the paints much less selling a painting. His inspiration has fizzled out. Now he’s no good at anything.

He was always told that he was so talented, but he always felt like he was cheating. He could play the piano by ear. He has always won at chess. He would win Jeopardy two weeks running, if he tried out. His paintings just happened and miraculously people actually wanted to look at them. But since he has discovered how numb alcohol can make a person, and how much his melancholy mind craves that numbness he can’t think of much else.

When he wasn’t bar tending, the owners would sometimes ask him to play for the night if the band couldn’t make it, and he’d make great money for something that came so easy to him. Now he’s either shaking because the liquor in his veins or a lack of it, so much so that he can barely play chopsticks without mumbling at least one obscenity and starting over. He does not have the heart to lift a paintbrush to the canvas. Oh well, he thinks, he was just buying time with skills he did not earn, gifts that were wasted on him anyways.

Now he sits on his unmade bed, surrounded by the books he loves so much. He wishes he could replace them with another love, one made of flesh and blood, or marble and fiery passion. But no one could ever want him. Who would want a man like him? A man whose own mother did not want him.

Grantaire had not cried since he was eight. When he found out a mother he had never met had died, of an overdose, a fact he had later cajoled from his drunken father at thirteen. So now he sat in pain that no alcohol or fancy pills could hold off.

His friends knew he was not like them. They could talk of utopias and perfect republics until four in the morning. He could not understand their idealism because his experience from life all proved that the opposite was the reality, his pessimism was painfully accurate.

He especially could not understand the passion that Enjolras felt for so many people that he had never met. He loves his friends but sometimes he cannot muster up the energy to care about even them. Only the next time he can lie down in bed with the blood dripping slowly from his veins.

He leans over and swings the whiskey over from the nightstand. He ends up practically gulping it down the warmth burning his throat all the way to the pit of his stomach. Why did Eponine ever bring him to that meeting? More importantly, what did he think he was doing falling in love with someone so perfect? He was just the depressed drunkard in the corner, there to provide color commentary and to rile up Enjolras every once in a while.

 

He was so fucking pathetic. He was the clueless, selfish Pip to Enjolras’ heartless Estella. But that was not Enjolras’ fault. Enjolras had no room in his life for a fuckup like Grantaire. Enjolras’ first and only love, after all, was patria and the republic. Grantaire was like a lost puppy who was giving everyone fleas and was due to be put down.

He ruined morale by being at meetings, he knew that. He made Courfeyrac laugh about things everyone else considered sacred. He had Jehan discussing the Victorian language of flowers while they were supposed to be planning rallies. He was asking Eponine to get him a drink at the bar because the bartender had cut him off ages ago, after which he would make a scene.

He believed in nothing but liquor and Enjolras after all. And he was just a nuisance to one of those things. So he closes the book in his lap. He seals the pages with his blood that will be dry by morning. He walks to the kitchen because there will be less for his friends to clean up that way. It is all tile in there.

He palms the razor carefully in one hand, the whiskey bottle in the other. He stands with his back to the sink and somehow chugs the rest of the bottle, toasting Jack Daniels in the sky with the empty bottle. He looks at his already bloody wrists, with his fingers coated in his own blood.

Fuck he forgot a note, so he keeps it simple. He paints one last masterpiece. 

Then he quickly slices one wrist, his left because it is his dominant and will be easier to slash the other with when he is already half gone, he reasons to himself. He hears a sharp knock as he slides with a thud to the kitchen floor. Then the door bursts open, revealing an angel. He had forgotten his Apollo was coming to pick up the flyers he had made, his one pathetic contribution to the cause. He hears the sharp gasp, and can feel the disgust of his god, made of marble and blond curls. So he quickly slashes his other wrist.

Anything to end this quicker.

To get his pathetic black soul from this pure man, his love. The whole time he murmurs over and over. “It’s not worth it, I’m not worth it.” Enjolras applies pressure with a dish cloth, cradling Grantaire’s head in his other arm, against his chest and cursing himself for not knowing and not making sure Grantaire did not believe the things he was currently chanting.

When Enjolras finally dozes off in the uncomfortable chair positioned next to Grantaire’s hospital bed, he has the image of the bloody message left on the front of the white fridge burned into his eyelids for what he can only imagine is eternity.

 

“I’m sorry.”


	2. As long as this feeble heart is still beating

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> a followup

He wakes up in the middle of the night. He’s expecting the checkered tile of the kitchen of his ramshackle apartment to be underneath him.

No, he almost whimpers as his surroundings come into focus, he’s expecting to be dead. He certainly hadn’t been expecting the pale blue of the hospital room surrounding him, or the scratchy johnny he was currently sporting, the IVs dripping into his arms and especially not the blond with his arms supporting his head, slumped over the arm of the uncomfortable visitors’ chair.

Grantaire actually whimpers when he feels the dull throbbing pain in his arms, underneath the thick white bandages covering his entire forearms. The blond head shoots up, blue eyes opening and focusing quickly on Grantaire’s face. Enjolras has dark circles under his eyes, so Grantaire can only image how he looks.

“Jesus, you’re awake.” Enjolras states in a bewildered and terrified tone. “But you’re not supposed to wake up until at least tomorrow. That’s why no one is here right now, they’re home sleeping, everyone was going to come back tomorrow...” He has stood up now, pacing back and forth at the end of the bed still speaking in the same tone, a bit loud for what Grantaire guessed the time was. His guess is confirmed when a hand pulls back the curtain dividing the room and shushes Enjolras with a glare. “Oh I’m so sorry.” He seems to realize he’s been shouting.

He turns, wild eyed, back to Grantaire, lying on the bed where he is trying to make himself as small as possible. Grantaire, despite himself, winces at the pain. Enjolras’ eyes soften immediately and he strides to the chair, pulling it up close to the bed. “Oh Grantaire, oh oh oh.” His hands twitch, ghosting over Grantaire’s hand, then his bandaged wrists. He suddenly leans over, pressing the call button for the nurses at the station down the hall. 

“I’m sorry.” Grantaire says so softly, it was like he was mouthing it.  
“Grantaire...”  
“That you found me.” He refuses to meet Enjolras’ eyes. Enjolras looks terrified. Grantaire feels terrified. Enjolras, the one who is so wonderful at speeches was scared to speak, because he did not know how to make this better. Racism, homophobia, facism, he knew what had to be done to make that go away, but he did not know what had to be done to make that look in Grantaire’s eyes or the slump in his shoulders go away. He shakes his head, starting to say something but is interrupted by the curtain being pulled back by a nurse with hot pink scrubs and a friendly, albeit weary smile.  
“Oh hun, you should still be asleep.” She clucks as she administers him more painkillers through his IV. “These will make you sleepy, so just lie back and dream about some nice things for me.” She reclines the bed for him. Both the men have been silent until Grantaire murmurs a broken thank you. She nods, strawberry blonde hair bouncing, her eyes sad as she pulls the curtain closed, they hear the soft click of the door on the other side of the room moments later.   
Grantaire is already losing consciousness. Enjolras is struggling to piece together words to show how he is feeling before the raven haired man on the bed succumbs to the narcotics dripping into his system.  
“I’m not sorry.” He finally murmurs. “I could not be less sorry.” He shakes his head at Grantaire who is fiddling with the rough sheets and gently grabs the moving fingers, holding them still. He takes his hand, holding it until Grantaire falls asleep.

 

When he wakes up, the sunlight is streaming into the room and right into his bleary eyes. He is expecting the night this time, and despite the drugged out haze he was in the last time he woke, he remembers Enjolras and is expecting him too.  
But in front of him is not the man who looks like a Greek God and speaks like a revolutionary. It is his friends. He has never been more ashamed as everything floods back into his mind. His broken, mental, mind that always ruins everything. They all wear masks of various happiness, but he can see the discomfort and uncertainty in their eyes.   
He itches to slip his bandaged arms under the thin blankets on his bed. Jehan, sensing this, throws himself at the bed, slipping himself onto the bed, curled around Grantaire’s thin, battered body. He starts humming what Grantaire is unfortunately very sure is What Makes You Beautiful.  
“Hey.” He manages to croak. There is a chorus of shaky answers to match his shaky voice. Then it dies back down to silence.  
“How are you feeling?” Combeferre questions politely.  
“Uh...” He chokes out “hazy.”  
“Any hot nurses administering any awesome drugs?” Courfeyrac exclaims in a sharp attempt to lighten the mood. Jehan kicks his foot out hitting Courfeyrac in the upper thigh, dangerously close to his crotch. But it causes Grantaire to offer a light chuckle.   
“Yeah, you’d be in heaven Courf.” He rolls his eyes, but everyone else is thinking morbidly about how close Grantaire came to the afterlife and the mood sours again.  
“You guys don’t need to be here, you all have lives to live.” They all offer various uncertain smiles.  
“Nah, we had to be here when your lazy ass woke up.” Feuilly says calmly from his place curled up on the windowsill. He earns a grin from Grantaire.  
“Too late.” He says in a quiet whisper. “I woke up last night.” His grin falls as he remembers who had been there then.  
“Really?” Combeferre’s nose scrunches up. “Enjolras said you slept the whole time he was here. He said he was sorry he had to go to work this morning and he couldn’t be here.”  
“It’s fine, he hates me anyways, who stuck him with the overnight, “Observe the resident loony” shift?” Grantaire says in an acidic tone.  
“No one hates you R.” Courfeyrac says in a serious voice.  
“And no one made anyone stay with you, we volunteered because we didn’t want you to be alone.” Combeferre said disappointed that he would have the opportunity to think that.  
“But I’ve been ignoring all of you for weeks.”   
“Yeah, but we love you.” Joly squeaks, still in his scrubs and Bossuet holding his hand.  
“You shouldn’t.” Grantaire scrunchs down in his bed, forgetting Jehan wrapped around him, and he ends up nicking his tender arm on Jehan’s back, muttering a choice word.  
“Oh Gran’ I’m so sorry.” Jehan wails, moving to get up, and Grantaire feels even more alone without the warmth of his sensitive friend. Bahorel and Feuilly both have work and plead his forgiveness for bowing out. Joly and Bossuet make their exit as well after the nurse reminds them that there should only be five people max in his room, dragging Marius, clueless as always out with them.   
The guide of the group and their center stay for another hour, both trying to take Grantaire’s mind off of the hospital room and reality, each in their own way. Combeferre with soothing words and stories, Courfeyrac with jokes and slight ribbing, sprinkled with excellent impressions of their friends. They take their leave at five when they are needed at the Musain for planning with their fearless leader, both sorry that they were leaving but knowing that Grantaire needed rest.  
Eponine alone had not spoken. She had been leaned against the back wall the whole time, watching with her large sorrowful eyes. As she watches the pair leave she uses her heavy, black boots to push herself off of the utilitarian blue wall. Her expression is hateful, her tone rapid when she finally speaks. She does not care that Jehan is in the room or that the person in the bed closest to the door is being discharged at the moment. She is all terror and fury.  
“WHY.” She is inches from his face, her own dark and accusing.  
“Ep?” Jehan whispers, his pale fingers reaching to grip her olive, emaciated arm. She rips it quickly out of his reach.  
“No, how fucking DARE YOU.” She accuses with a skeletal finger pointing into his chest. Grantaire just stares open mouthed at his best friend since childhood. “you are so selfish, oh my god, when I got that call from him, I couldn’t fucking breathe. for ten fucking minutes. Jesus, Grantaire why?” Her eyes flash to his. “Why.” She says in a calmer tone, chest heaving from her angry display. The other patient in the room has long vacated out of fear. Grantaire is shaking as much as her when he responds in an equally calm voice.  
“I just couldn’t do it anymore, Ep.” He chokes out in a broken voice, looking around to find that Jehan has made himself sparse. His eyes are watering against his will.  
“Oh fuck Grantaire.” She sits on the side of his bed taking his arm in her hands, running her hand over the bandage on his left hand. “You need to heal and paint me a beautiful landscape to make up for this.” He smiles ruefully at her only joking angry tone.   
“I’m sorry, Ep.”   
“I’m not actually mad you absolute tosser.” Her face becomes serious again. “Grantaire, I oh fuck, I... I actually cried for you you dick.” She shoves his chest lightly.  
“Yeah, I can tell you’re totally gutted.”   
“No, I love your sorry arse.” She rolls her eyes at him. “I can’t believe I said that. I want to help, I’m always here to help, so don’t do anything so fucking stupid again.” She rests her head on his chest, the repetitive clown pattern on the johnny blurred by the tears that she blinks back quickly. He sighs.  
“I’ll try, Ep.” He sighs again. “But it’s so hard sometimes, it’s so dark and lonely sometimes.” He lightly kisses her unruly brown hair, and strokes her head with his numb hands.  
“I know. ‘Taire.” She laughs at the insult of her favorite nickname for him once more. “I know too well. She only leaves when Jehan shows up with her favorite tea and a promise to keep Grantaire company for her. It’s not long before Jehan and Grantaire drift off to sleep, curled up carefully together on the stiff hospital bed.

 

When he wakes up it is not Jehan curled up next to him, but a head of blond curls resting on the bed next to his thigh. Grantaire shifts, trying not to disturb the sleeping man as he gets up to use the toilet. It is night now. Jehan forgot his scarf on the back of the chair. His IV squeaks as he hobbles across the room, weak legged. His arms do not hurt, he does not know if this is good or bad, maybe he should be in pain for all the pain he’s caused. He’s not sure if he’s dreaming Enjolras in the other room.   
He’s certainly not dreaming as he stumbles and falls to his knees, half way back to bed. Enjolras is immediately on his feet. He grips under Grantaire’s armpits, despite the shorter man’s protests, and half carries him back to bed.   
“Can’t even walk correctly.” Grantaire laughs mirthlessly. Enjolras offers a grimace.  
“That’s because you do so many other things wonderfully.” Both are wide awake now.  
“Like royally piss you off.” Grantaire is back under the covers and back to not making eye contact with the object of his undying love. Well, unfortunately and accidently undying.  
“More like make me refine my arguments for later use.” Enjolras chuckles.  
“And fuck up everything else.”  
“Not really.” Grantaire cocks his head, finally looking up at Enjolras and his blue eyes, checking for a hint of a lie. He stares in a way at Enjolras that quickly makes him uncomfortable. A look of almost worship. Finally broken by a snort from Grantaire.  
“I can’t even off myself correctly.” Grantaire says in a laughing tone, his eyes dark.  
“Good thing, though.”  
“Thought you didn’t care, thought you hate me.” Grantaire says in a mocking tone.  
“No I don’t Grantaire.” Enjolras says nixing Grantaire’s attempts at a joke. “Do you really think that Grantaire.”  
“You kind of regularly tell me I’m a useless sod.” His voice is small.  
“You’re really aggravating, but you’re not useless Grantaire, I’m sorry that I say that, because I really hate lying.”  
“Don’t be sorry, I’m really shit at everything, especially your meetings and believing in much.”  
“I am sorry. And you’re fantastic at so many things that I’m shit at. Like affection. I can’t even hug my best friend and when I got here you were bloody cuddling with Jehan and I can’t believe I’m jealous.” He reconsiders. “Much? Does that mean you believe in anything?”  
“I believe in you. I’m nothing, but I believe in you.” Grantaire murmurs completely serious for once.  
“Oh Grantaire. Do I need to convince you of your worth, did you not see it by the way all of our friend adore you?” Enjolras pulls closer to the bed, taking Grantaire’s arm in a fashion similar to Eponine’s earlier and once again ghosts his hands over Grantaire’s bandages. “Do you know how terrifying it was to find you like that?”  
“I’m sorry.” Grantaire whispers. “I’m sorry it was you that found me.” Enjolras looks hurt.  
“Why? Do you hate me like you thought I hated you?” Grantaire pulls his arm away and puts his hands in his lap, laughing breathlessly, no humor in his eyes.  
“Do you not know?”  
“Know what? Tell me.” Enjolras persists. Grantaire shakes his head, the vulnerable look gone from his eyes, they darken instead. Enjolras can barely hear him when he curses under his breath.  
“I love everything about you. How could I hate you, how could anyone hate you? You’re perfect, you’re like the fucking sun, and I’m a blackhole and I wanted to be nothing like I always have been and I did not want you to find me.” He snarls, but immediately looks horrified at his words. “I just...I just...I don’t mean that.” Enjolras’ face is a blank, unreadable slate.  
“You did this because of me?” He finally says quietly his hands shaking,  
“No, Jesus Christ of course not....” Enjolras cuts him off.  
“I was so cruel to you, I was horrible to you, because you pissed me off. And I didn’t know why you bothered me so much, and then I had your blood on my shirt and in my hair and I thought if you died, I should die because of how awful I had been.” He shakes, pushing himself up from the chair. “Jesus, Grantaire, you love me? Why did you do this to yourself if not because I am so horrible.”  
“It’s not about you.” Enjolras realizes his words had sounded selfish, what else is new when it comes to Grantaire he thought, he never knew the right words to say to this man who got under his skin so deeply. “It’s me. All me.”Grantaire shakes his head. “I’m so fucked up, I’m sorry, I’m so sorry I love you.” He hides his face in his damaged arms, wishing he had the strength to open his stitches back up. Enjolras sits back down.  
“No.” Grantaire looks up. “No more apologizing. Just tell me everything Grantaire, everything you want to.”  
“It’s so fucking embarassing.”  
“You’ve seen me drunk, try me on the embarassing.” Grantaire laughs and sobs at the same time.  
“I’m always drunk.”  
“Yeah and I’m always a revolutionary dickhead. Explain it to me, Grantaire, explain why.” He sighs heavily. “But only if you want.”  
“Alright. I’ll try, but please leave if you find this too pathetic. I mean we’re not even close.” But Enjolras just nudged him.

“Some days I can’t get out of bed. My head hurts, my body hurts and I’m so tired. Tired at school, at work, as soon as I wake up.” He glances at a nodding Enjolras. “Man, I haven’t even told a therapist this, and I’m telling you, a perfect Apollo.”  
“Yeah, yeah, I’m not perfect.”   
“I drink to dull the pain from my mind, I know I’m a disgrace to my friends. They all believe and I only believe in whiskey. I always want to be alone but I don’t ever want to be alone. What a lousy drunkard I am. I missed Eponine’s last birthday, I had been drunk for three days straight and just forgot.” His chest was wracked by a sob. An awkward hand was tentatively rubbing his back. Months ago he would have sold his soul for Enjolras to touch him and now he was trying desperately to not get snot on him.   
He’s rambling and not making any sense but it’s cathartic as all hell.

“I just don’t think I can get up sometimes so I don’t. I’m useless. This depression kills everything. I’m hideous. I can’t paint anymore, can’t play piano, can’t play chess, I only use my boxing skills in bar brawls now. I’m disgusting. I’m in love with fucking Apollo and I’m this awful excuse for a human being who just ruins everyone’s life and I’m so sorry you had to see me like that. Having to see me at all is awful but fuck, cutting is so helpful and I thought it would be helpful enough to end all this pain all the time. I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.” Enjolras lets in a sharp intake of breath when Grantaire finally stops sobbing, his head resting on Enjolras’ chest once again as the taller man had pulled him into a vice grip after his last sentence.  
“Shhh...” He awkwardly tries to soothe Grantaire, which he has realized too late is because he actually cares about the man. “You know when I met you, I didn’t believe all the things my friends said about you. Someone as cynical as you could not be so passionate and so good at so many things. But you were, and that made you bloody beautiful. You could play the piano, and box and paint like Van Gogh, you had shit opinions about the future and the world but I liked having your shit opinions around.” He hears a slight hiccup from the broken man in his arms. He cannot believe that the man he had met four years ago, the one who was constantly challenging him was the man in his arms, and the man he had found bleeding out on the tile floor of his apartment.

“You are bloody brilliant Grantaire, and I know that doesn’t take the hurt away. But I want you to know that we love you. All of us.” He says with force, tighting his grip. “You’re going to get help. We need you to get help. I need you to get help.” He places a kiss on Grantaire’s wild hair, an affectionate gesture he knows he would never be able to give another human being. “Watching you change over the years, we should have known Grantaire, and I’m afraid I owe you an apology for not knowing.” He kisses him softly again on the forehead, Grantaire’s eyes are shut, tears still leaking. “Because you’re worth it, you’re worth the universe Grantaire. Which is a whole lot better than the sun.”

“I’m sorry, Apollo.” 

“You will get better Grantaire, now no more apologies from you.”

Grantaire is dangerously close to sleep now. So Enjolras tucks him in, murmuring a silent prayer over the man who does not know his worth. A man being strangled by disease. When his breathing evens out and Enjolras is sure he is asleep, he leans back in his chair, watching Grantaire’s chest rise and fall.   
“Goddamit, I love you too.” He realizes as he pushes a fallen curl out of Grantaire’s face, but he knows he will have to keep this to himself for a while. He needs Grantaire to get better for himself and not try to do it for Enjolras.

When Grantaire wakes up in a cold sweat at noon the next day, he curses the day painkillers were invented. He almost dies of embarrassment when he remembers what they had made him say. 

Fuck.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> please give me critiques of my writing style, love you all PS this is all over the place and I'm sorry,

**Author's Note:**

> Some day I'll write fluffy stories where Grantaire is happy (or as happy as he can get)


End file.
